Pedagogy: Humanities or Social Sciences?
——Concurrently Discussing with Pro. Zhang Chuting
Wang Hongcai
Abstract: Does pedagogy belong to humanities or social sciences? How to answer this basic question is very crucial to the direction of the construction of pedagogy. Historically, the attribute of pedagogy had changed greatly, which had experienced the transformation from humanities to social sciences, then to comprehensive sciences after the mid-20th century. The changing trend tells us that pedagogy has both the qualities of humanities and social sciences,it shows the trend of diversity currently. Facing utilitarian tendency of education, education should return to itself. Education should act as value subject rather than simply as the instrument. Furthermore, the humanity orientation of pedagogy is one of the goals that should be witnessed constantly, while, when taken as comprehensive sciences, pedagogy will be more beneficial to the development of the discipline of pedagogy.
Key words: pedagogy, humanities, social sciences, comprehensive sciences
Author: Wang Hongcai, professor and Ph.D. of Center for Higher Education Development Research, Xiamen University (Xiamen 361005)